WORKERS’ COMPENSATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 December 1922, Page 7

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION.

ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS EXPLAINED. We are in receipt, of the following from the Department of Labor: I am directed by the Minister cf Labor (the Hon. G. J. Anderson) to call your attention to the Workers’ Compensation Act, 1922, passed last session, which takes the place of the Workers' Act, 1908, and its amendments.

This measure i» chiefly a consolidation, but attention is called to the following amendments: 1. The proportion of a worker’s average weekly earnings that is payable in the ease of total or partial incapacity has been increased from 55 per cent, in the old Act to 58 per cent, (section 5 and 6).

2. The amount of damages that may be recovered by a worker from an employer in an action in respect of the negligence of a fellow servant has been increased from £750 in the old Act to £lOOO (section 67).

3. Tn the old Act a domestic servant in private employ was not covered by the Act unless the- period of service was not lees than seven days. This has now r been altered to three days (first schedule). 4. The second schedule has been altered by providing a compensation of 10 per cent, of the full compensation that would be payable for total incapacity for the total loss of a big toe (instead of 5 per cent., as formerly). 5. In the old Act, when a judgment for compensation had been obtained by a worker from the court, it was not possible for him to proceed for damages, even although the amount of the judgment had not actually been paid, and similarly where judgment had been recovered for damages it was not possible to proceed for compensation. This provision has now been altered so that judgment for damages or compensation (as the case may be) is no bar to further action if. after ail reasonable steps have been taken to obtain satisfaction, the amount of the judgment has not been paid. 6. Section 14 (2) now provides that when a worker is a member of a friendly society or similar organisation, no deduction shall be made on that account from the compensation or medical, surgical, or funeral expenses to which he may be entitled under the Act.